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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Penpals - A Lost Art

There
really is nothing better than getting a letter or card in the mail. So often we
are so busy that we forget the pure joy of opening a card that someone hand-picked
for you or reading a letter that was written for your eyes only.

When I was
in grade school, I had a pen pal. I wish now that I had not lost touch with
her. She was in another country and we exchanged many letters, learning all
types of things about each other that would not have been shared otherwise. I
came across some of these letters recently, filed away in an old box of school
keepsakes. I re-read several of them, holding them to my heart after I finished
and relishing the written words on the pages. In these letters as children, we
shared our hopes and our dreams. We wondered about our futures, we wished
wondrous things for each other. We talked about siblings, our family, our
schools, what our future husbands might be like and many, many other subjects.

I wonder
what her family looks like now, how many children she had or did not have. How
her life has turned out? Was she successful? Did she become a teacher like she
wanted to or did her life take her down a completely different path?

Reading
her letters made me want to reach out to someone, anyone and start a new mail
chain. Reach out and touch someone the way she and I touched each other and
made our large worlds seem smaller in some way. We were oceans away from each
other, but every time I got a letter from her the distance seemed to fall away
like she was right next door.

In our
electronic age, we are dehumanizing and forgetting how to simply reach out and
touch someone with the caress of our written words. We are forgetting how to
personalize things and make them expressly for those you care about. I often told
my fiancé, now husband of almost 20 years, that I would much rather get a
handwritten note from him, even just a few sentences. Something like that means
so much more to me than flowers or candy or any gift he could give me. Often the
best things in life cost very little. A stamp still is less than a dollar
today. Stop now, today and write something to someone you love and put it in the
mail to them. I promise it will make a big difference.